Family Portrait!

We have commissioned a family portrait! We are so excited about this!

I ran across Ann Gardner's paintings during fundraisers for Stephanie (NieNie) & Christian Nielson last year. I purchased one of her Nie magnets (above) to support the Nielsons and also a set of Frida Kahlo magnets from her etsy shop. Ann even sent me a few Frida notecards (available here!) as a bonus! I fell in love with Ann's fun, colorful style. And more importantly, so did Number One.

I read her blog, found her painting website, and I discovered that she is available to do commissioned family portraits. Surprisingly, Number One thought it would be an excellent idea to have one done! I admire Ann for getting things like this accomplished, especially having a preschooler, a toddler and a baby, yet still somehow managing to find time to create magnificent paintings. Unbelievable.

I finally got my act together and sent Ann a selection of photos of me, Number One, H-Bomb and Sawed Off, as well as two of our dogs, Mia and the late, great Stanley. I have to ask Number One if he wants our cat in the picture or not. But we will be standing in front of the Sundial, a major rock formation in front of our house, with our herd of horses galloping beneath the Sundial, behind us.

Ann is excited about how unique the painting will be. She has painted portraits in front of family homes, etc. but I believe the cliff in the background will be a first.

I will post a picture of our family portrait when it is finished, whenever that may be. If you'd like to see more of Ann's amazing work or commission a portrait of your own, visit Ann's blog or her website and contact her. And let me know if you do, because I want to see what your portraits look like too!

Sneak Peek!

PAINT!!!

Yesterday, we started painting! Above is the back corner of the kitchen. The wall on the left will be a different color. The rust red wall continues all the way across into the dining room. Number One and I are In Love with this color. It will look so nice when we have lighting in the rooms and the lighting is dimmed and the sun is setting! I love how colors change throughout the day depending on the angle of the sun.


We did have a slight problem or two. The first came in the morning. The contractor's son had told us the night before that we could start painting. So you'll remember that Number One stayed up late putting on primer so we could get the paint on the next day. In the morning, we went over and started painting, and CG offered to take the boys to school, and the contractor came down for a bit.

When the contractor left, his son basically started putting the pine ceiling up over Number One's head, rushing him. It was odd and awkward, and he acted like the paint should be up already, when he had literally told us we could begin just 12 hours before.

We were able to get two coats on the wall that the crew is standing in front of, but then we ran out of paint. We have two whole walls that need another coat of paint. And the ceiling is going up.

I ran to the northern town after school, 60 miles one way, to get some more paint. The only problem was that the paint store was completely out of the base color needed for the rust red. Figures, right? So now we'll have to wait until Tuesday or Wednesday for more of that paint.

In the meantime, I will begin painting the other wall in the kitchen (remember the white one on the left, above?), where unfortunately there are now pine planks up against the wall which I have to paint. Carefully, without getting paint on the freaking pine ceiling. I'm a little upset. I don't understand why they couldn't have given us one day, just ONE day, to get a couple coats of paint up there FIRST. I suppose I'll get over it, but it does make our job more difficult, and quite honestly we are NOT professional painters.

So anyway. That will be fun today, and I have to get over there and bleach and prime a section of the old wall before I can start precisely painting next to that gorgeous new ceiling. Isn't it looking great? Let's just hope I can keep it that way...

Priming!

The dining room and kitchen have been textured, and Number One started priming them tonight. As soon as the primer is finished and dried, we will begin painting!!! So exciting!


I'm not sure how excited you all are to see stark white walls? But anyway, here they are. Trust me, they won't be white for long...

Narrowing It Down...

We've narrowed down our pendant choices. We decided to go with an ELK brand mini pendant, the style of which we both like. The price is also right: just over $50 per pendant. Now we just have to pick one color from the EIGHT colors available:


This is so much fun! We have the paint colors picked out and the paint purchased for the dining room and kitchen, so we will be taking that into consideration as well. But I'm still not sharing until I can share PICTURES!! We want the pendants to be more of an accent anyway, not blending in too much.

Also, we've picked out the chandelier for the dining room. There will also be some pot lights around the perimeter, so this fixture is mostly for ambiance. Rustic, yet refined, stylish, yet classic. (and it looks like candles, which I am not allowed to have down on the ranch with no "911" and a fire department almost 40 miles away!)

I cannot wait.

Red Rain & Snow

Seriously, what has happened to Spring? The night before last and yesterday were so windy it was amazing. When we woke up yesterday the sky was hazy from blowing dirt in the air, and just kept getting worse as the wind continued all day long. By the time we got to town, the sky was the same color as the soil and the rocks: RED. It glowed eerily pinkish-orange when the sun attempted a breakthrough, but the haze won. (I forgot my camera was in the van, sorry no pictures from town)

While H-Bomb was in school, it started to snow. Red mud snow. The van was covered in red muddy speckles where the snowflakes landed. The wind blew so hard it shook the van with me and Sawed Off in it.

On the way home from school, I remembered I had my camera, so here are a few pictures. All taken through the windshield of the van, because red mud snow stains. Just miserable conditions.

In the picture above, there are huge mountains in the background.
Trust me, there are. You just can't see them right now.

As we dropped into the canyon, the red mud snow changed to red mud rain. I used a lot of windshield washer fluid to drive that last 10 miles home. Every vehicle we passed looked like it had just taken a mud bath.

Below you can see the dirt beginning to clear out of the sky, on the left.
Unfortunately, toward the right is where we live!

In addition to the hidden mountains, cliffs and rocks usually seen as you are driving down the road were hidden from view, the visibility was so poor.



When we got home, I grabbed my real camera and headed out to take a picture. I opened the window for less than a minute, and here's what happened to the inside of the van:



At some point, the sky began to clear as the rain and snow brought all the dirt back down to earth. It took a long time.

Here are pictures of our van from the following morning:

Blech!!!

Paint and Updates! (and a Plumber Issue)

looking out from the kitchen, the dining room will be on the left
(that hole is for the pantry door) and the living room will be to the right.

dining room, above

kitchen

The drywall/sheet rock/whatev you wanna call it is going up Sooo Fast!! I can't believe it. Instead of just thinking about paint colors, we are going to be purchasing paint colors, possibly as soon as next week! It's just crazy. We do have some awesome colors picked out, and Number One and I discussed some complementary colors this morning. I'm keeping it all under wraps until it's finished. You all will just have to wait and see.

So this darn plumber. I just don't understand what happened. When we bought our whirlpool tub (on clearance, remember?) we were so excited. We picked out the faucet, decided to have it installed off-center, so we could actually both sit together in our 5 1/2 foot long tub someday when we have a few minutes alone. (you know, when that happens 5 years from now). We picked up a drain/plug assembly, as we were told to by the contractor. We ended up exchanging it the last time we went to the Big City, because we realized that the lever would be poking into whoever's back happened to be on that end of the tub.


We got a very nice, flat cable drain/plug assembly, with a nice, flat knob to raise and lower the nice, flat plug. Perfect.


The plumber installed our tub a day or two ago, and then yesterday we were looking through things and realized: our very nice, flat cable drain/plug assembly had been Opened, but ALL the pieces were still in the box. WHAT??? We went over to the tub, and looked inside. Guess what? The plumber used a DIFFERENT drain/plug assembly. Where did he get it? And more importantly, WHY??? This one has a big ole knob that you twist and pull up to open the drain. That most certainly Will NOT Do.


Come on. You just don't install that kind of thing in a 5 1/2 foot long whirlpool tub!! You just don't. Especially when your customers have a perfect drain assembly sitting there waiting for you.

So now, we have to have the plumber come back and change the whole thing. Did I tell you, the tub is already installed and cemented down (or whatever the proper term is)??? That will be fun for him, won't it. He just better do it promptly and without complaining, or else. I have some pent-up Irish Catholic wrath that probably would best remain pent-up. I'm just sayin'.

Progress!!

Pocket Door Tracks!!!

Insulation!!!


Bathtub!!!


Drywall!!!


I'm too excited for words...

Inspection Time

Where to begin. The electricians have some finishing up to do, which was made clear during the first inspection. But for now, the contractors are able to start putting up sheet rock! It's almost time to pick out paint colors!!

The plumbers have been around, they are not nearly finished, and the electricians need to switch the outlet for our whirlpool tub. The plumbers do have the plumbing in for the new vanity, and they will be replacing the entire gas line in the existing house as well as installing new gas lines in the addition. We've decided where to place the shower head, and the roman faucet and knobs for our tub. Number One even cut some Wonderboard to put under the edge of the tub on which we will place some of our tile.

Before I forget, let me tell you about the electricians. I'm angry with them. I talked to them about smoke detectors, explained our reasoning for using battery powered detectors instead of electric smoke detectors. The electric ones are an unnecessary power drain, as we generate our own power AND we have no power at night because we turn off the generator. We are considering a switch to solar in the near future, at which point the electric detectors would have to be switched off at the circuit breakers while we were on solar power, making them just plain stupid as well as a waste of money.

I explained all this to the guys. Then I came home to find out they had Cut Holes in my ceilings and installed the wiring and boxes anyway for the stupid electric detectors. I went to town and called their boss, who said "yeah, sorry about that, we'll do what it takes to make you happy." We'll see about that. We already have so many holes to patch up in the existing part of the house, and now two more holes in the ceiling?? Sheesh. Annoying. I wonder if I can make them fix the holes instead of me?

Also, about 4 of the pot lights (our contractor calls them "can lights") over the wraparound bar were in the wrong place. They were in line with where we had talked about putting them, but looking at them any fool can tell they should be moved back. Where they are now, about 4 inches to one side of a big beam, they will definitely cast a shadow on the bar side of the counter top. Not acceptable! Maybe they were just trying to "make me happy."

This is funny though: we have a wall leading from the living room into the dining room that is a 45 degree angle, it's just about 3 feet wide. I wanted a pot light centered above that little wall, which is unfortunately tucked under one of the beams a little bit, but I still wanted a light centered there. The electricians installed a light there, but in the wrong place, so I had to ask them to move it. Then the contractor's son comes along a few days later, thinks that light ought to be lined up with the other lights in the dining room (that would make installing tongue and groove pine on the ceiling there a bit easier) and so he moves it! Thank goodness he mentioned it to me, and I had him move it right back where it belongs.

He also repositioned the light over the kitchen sink, separated the pendant lights by 3 more inches, and will also reposition three lights over the wraparound bar so they don't cast as much of a shadow being so close to that darn beam.

So basically, the majority of the electric is in, except for the circuit breakers and a few wires the contractor and the inspector discovered missing. The plumbing is going in, slowly but surely. I believe the sheet rock will start going in tomorrow. This place is coming together!

I would include a picture, but it's a mess with all the materials that have been stacking up waiting on the electricians and the plumbers. Soon. More progress, more pictures!

It's All in the Details...

So. About three weeks ago, the electrician finally came down for an initial walk-through of our addition, and we told him absolutely everything we wanted. He said he would be back on Monday, which was perfect because it was Spring Break, we'd be around, home from school, etc. Monday came and went. Spring Break came and went. Emails went unanswered. Weeks started rolling by, with no word. Materials started stacking up, the contractor stopped coming down because there was nothing more he could do. Finally, the guy emailed and said he had gotten swamped and just wasn't able to do it.

The contractor found another electrician to use. The only problem: I had given our only copy of the electrical plans to the first electrician. I had three days to get those plans before meeting with the new electricians. I tracked down the guy on our way to the Big City, found where he was working and got our plans back.

The new electricians? They actually SHOWED UP when they said they would! Yesterday! We went through everything before I took H-Bomb to school, I took the plans with me to make copies for everyone, and when I came back, they had most of the outlets roughed-in, wires were strung, the old electrical service box had been moved to the outside! It was amazing. There were three guys, and they got a ton of work done in just one day.


Number One and I walked through last night, made a couple final decisions, then this morning answered the few questions the electricians had.

One of the little details that occurred to me is in the kitchen. Instead of having the outlets sticking up vertically above the back splash, especially since there will be no upper cabinets, I decided to have the outlets installed horizontally. They will be more in line with the counter tops, instead of sticking up into that precious wall space. And you know what? I love how it is going to look. I honestly don't know why everyone doesn't install them that way. The electricians installed the outlets over the vanity the same way. I really like that.


There are a lot of details in electrical work, that I'd really never thought of. Location of switches, which lights will come on together, which will be on dimmers. Where the outlets should be, how many is enough, etc.

I think it's coming together now. The electrical work will be complete in another day or two, except for installing the light fixtures, which naturally will go up after the ceiling and after we've painted everything.

Here's hoping for more frequent updates and real progress once again!